Question

Scenario: While shopping in a local nursery, you meet Albert. Albert recently bought a new house in the Elk Grove area. He wants to do some landscaping and put in a summer vegetable garden. You both get to talking about the local environment and soil conditions. Albert complains about how impossible his heavy clay seems to work with. While commiserating with Albert, he comments to you that he is just going to truck in 6 inches of top soil and plant in that. What are your thoughts on this practice? What recommendations could you give Albert?

Answer 1

Most important thing to know here is about the clay. Clay particles are tiny, when tiny particles become coated with water, slight pressure causes them to glue together.Clay soil settles into layers of fine sediment that feel like gloppy mud and the water will take hours to clear. Because of this fine texture clay soil tend to pack down and limits the amount of soil oxygen available to plant roots and soil microbes. As the concentration of clay particles in the soil increases the harder it is to grow vegetables and plants. Therefore, much work has to be done for the clay soil to be fruitful. important thing to know about the clay soil are:

1. It has a good water holding capacity.

2. Drains slowly because of small particles water takes lot of time to go through clay.

3. Hard to work because of high density.

4. Bad airflow

5. lack of organic matter

6. Nutrient dense and thus can be very good to grow vegetables and fruits.

7. High pH

The best approach for growing vegetables in clay soil is to stick with vegetables that like clay during the first few seasons of soil improvement. Chard, snap beans and other crops with shallow roots benefit from clay soil's ability to retain moisture. Also broccoli, brussels sprouts and cabbage grow better in clay soil.

I would recommend the following procedure to Albert for his summer vegetable garden in clay soil.

Hard clay soil is difficult for delicate roots to penetrate. To solve this problem composting can be done.
1. Tilling must be done which reshuffles the soil and breaks up the hard chunks of clay soil.

2. Composting: a compost needs to be mixed with soil as deep as 6-8 inches. The compost and the clay once mixed will resolve the issue of flooding in the garden or the soil becomes more absorptive.

3. Mulching, wood mulch that can be found at the carpenter's site making sure not to use the pressure treated lumber because it has chemicals.

4. Adding gypsum : Gypsum( calcium sulfate) help to loosen up clay soil

Last but not the least, timely water the beds that have been planted.